As labor union protests have broken out throughout the Midwest in response to legislation that could threaten organized labor, union members at Binghamton University have expressed their worries over the legislation and support for unions in other states.
Bills currently before state legislatures in Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio would limit unions’ collective bargaining ability and reduce benefits for state workers.
The bills would institute a variety of changes: barring collective bargaining for anything other than wages in Wisconsin, preventing collective bargaining between teachers’ unions and local school boards in Tennessee and allowing union members to opt out of union dues and fees in Indiana. Wisconsin has already passed legislation, but some, especially Democrats, feel that it was not a fair vote. The Democrats and union workers continue to protest.
Republicans said these measures are necessary to balance the budget in these states. Democrats call the legislation an attack on the middle class.
“This is a reform budget,” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker told lawmakers inside the Assembly chamber as protesters on the floor below screamed, banged on drums and blew horns. “It is about getting Wisconsin working again. And to make that happen, we need a balanced budget that works and an environment where the private sector can create 250,000 jobs over the next four years.”
Union members at Binghamton University, the BU chapter of the SUNY-wide United University Professions, which represents all professors, and Workers United, which represents Sodexo workers, all feel strongly about the perceived attacks on organized labor in the Midwest.
“Anytime there is an attack on the workers’ rights, there is an increase in inequality and a smaller working class,” said David Cingranelli, a professor of political science at BU whose areas of focus include public policy and human rights.
According to Mark Blumler, a geography professor at BU, the legislation and subsequent protests are all about blame.
“In an economy that is going to continue to tank, more and more people are looking for a group to blame, to justify taking money away from that group,” Blumler said. “To see where that leads, look at Germany after WWI.”
James Dix, interim president of UUP, said that “UUP supports the protests.”
He also said, “UUP has developed an excellent working relationship with the administration at BU, and, on a statewide level, with the New York State Legislature. There is a lot that can be improved with UUP, but at its core, I feel that UUP is effective in advocating for and protecting the terms and conditions of employment for faculty and professional staff.”
Dix also said unions are necessary to getting anything accomplished politically.
“I cannot begin to imagine what our working lives would be like if we did not belong to a union,” he said. “If there were no union, faculty and professional staff would probably band together anyway to form a group to react to decisions by the State that negatively impact the terms and conditions of our employment. UUP is the formal organization for us to have a seat at the political table.”
Dix said applying the Wisconsin restrictions to UUP at BU would be “disastrous.”
“New York State would be able to unilaterally set working conditions for faculty and professional staff,” he said. “UUP is strongly opposed to this government control over our working lives. It’s not about jobs or budgets, it’s about power. There is a political agenda behind the move to defang the unions.”
Professors are not the only union members on campus who expressed strong opposition to the proposed legislation. An employee of Sodexo, who spoke under condition of anonymity because Sodexo employees could lose their jobs for speaking to the media, called the legislation “an insult to the long tradition of organized labor in this country.”
“There is supposed to be a check on the large organizations of power, and that check is unions,” the employee said.
The worker also doubted that there will be anti-union legislation in New York, but admitted to being worried about the future of unions, calling the legislation “a bad direction for this country to be going.”
Thomas Dublin, a history professor at BU, said it was important for American students to know about these efforts to remove unions’ collective bargaining rights.
“I hope students would oppose [these bills], even though it doesn’t appear on the surface that they are under attack, I think that they would be the next to be under attack,” Dublin said. “Without a union [at BU] to negotiate with, the state unilaterally could increase, for example, workload, class size and time spent on research, with the goal of churning out the most degrees for the least amount of money.”
— Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.